


Joint Venture

by DameRuth



Series: Jed and Friends [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Multi, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-02
Updated: 2012-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-28 18:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/310789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While travelling through the alt!verse, Rose and TenII team up with the counterpart of an old friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My [2008 OT3 Ficathon](http://wendymr.livejournal.com/111679.html) entry on LJ. Written for the following prompt (#7): **"Rose and the Duplicate Doctor, now travelling in their very own TARDIS, stumble over a 51st century Time Agent bearing an uncanny resemblance to Jack Harkness ;) Do not want: unhappy ending."  
> **  
>  This is a brand-new alt!verse, but I've shamelessly carried over a few concepts from similar stories I've written (e.g. "gingerbread" used as a code-word for cross-Universe differences, etc.); consider the repetition to represent my own, personal bedrock canon on how these things work. ;)

Rose clenched her teeth so they wouldn't rattle and clung to a coral strut for dear life. If she'd thought the TARDIS had given them a rough ride through the Vortex, it was because she'd had no idea how massive and stable the stately old timeship really was. _Now_ she knew the difference.

"Come on, you lovely thing!" the Doctor was crooning at the top of his voice, wielding two rubber mallets across the controls like some mad xylophone player, riding the bucking deck as easily as a surfer at the top of his form. Everything not nailed down was flying around the cramped, jury-rigged control room, which looked like the inside of a corrugated steel gardening shed with coral branches and bundles of cables running almost at random through the interior — not too far off the reality, actually. The _Mark Two_ was bigger on the inside than the outside, true enough -- there were even cramped living quarters for two jammed down under the main deck, accessed through a trapdoor — but she still had a long way to grow before she was anything like full-sized. She rattled and bounced through the Vortex like a tin can full of loose gears going over Niagara Falls.

 _And I thought this was a good idea,_ Rose thought, swallowing and closing her eyes, trying not to visualize what would happen if the Doctor's DIY extrapolator shielding should fail. _I encouraged him, said we were ready for a full-out Time And Space trip -- we should have taken it easy, just bopped around the Solar System in real-time for a little longer . . ._

The Doctor whooped like a madman, trailing off into delighted, pealing laughter. Rose's eyes popped open again. "We're doing it, Rose! We're _flying_ again!" he called to her over the din. His grin was nearly too big for his face, teeth flashing in the violet incandescence of the new Time Rotor. He was alight and alive as she hadn't seen him since they'd walked away from the beach at Bad Wolf Bay.

 _No. This is a brilliant idea,_ she decided, changing her mind once and for all. _This is a_ fantastic _idea. We shouldn't have waited another minute . . ._

Then the _Mark Two_ dropped like a stone, Rose's feet left the deck completely, and every coherent thought was blown clean out of her mind.

Rose was aware, though she couldn't say how, that the ship was fighting the drop bravely, with all the power of her little Heart. Slowly, their plunge into nothing slowed, followed by a series of jolting stair-step decelerations. With each jolt, Rose added to her collection of bruises, but she held on with grim determination.  Each jolt was less extreme than the one before and at last the ship stabilized (upright this time, to Rose’s relief), her Rotor pulsing unevenly as if in gasping breaths. Rose clung to the support strut a moment longer, while the Doctor braced himself against the edge of the console, but the calm held and the Rotor's cycling became slower and more even.

Passenger and pilot slowly relaxed, then flinched in unison as a final musical tinkle of breaking crockery reached them from the living quarters.

"That was the last teacup," Rose sighed, "I bet you anything." She unwrapped her arms from the strut and gave it an affectionate pat.

The Doctor released his death grip on the console and blew out a long breath. Then he grinned again. "We'll get more. Teacups are easy. What matters is, we're _travelling_! That's the hard part." He slipped around the console, navigating the cramped space with a dancer's ease, until he was standing in front of Rose. "Travelling through Time . . ."

Rose grinned back. " . . . and Space!" they finished together, exchanging high-fives, followed by a long, heartfelt kiss and hug.

Rose pressed her ear and cheek to the Doctor's chest, listening to his steady, single heartbeat through the thin fabric of his t-shirt, soaking in his familiar warmth. It had been his idea to name this new ship the _Mark Two_ instead of calling her the TARDIS or some variation thereof.

 _"We're the new and improved models,"_ he'd told Rose with a cheeky wink as he stroked his hand along a white coral branch at the ship's christening. _"Both of us."_ Back then the ship had been the size of a ficus tree, living in an outbuilding at Pete and Jackie Tyler's mansion. They'd all come a long way since then, even if it had only been a year and a half.

The Rotor cycled one last time and stopped.

They pulled apart enough to look at each other. "Shall we go and see where we are?" the Doctor asked, a look of almost demented glee and anticipation playing across his features, though he was attempting to suppress it and play cool to tease her.

Rose grinned, catching her tongue between her teeth, happy to hear that question again, and even happier to see the Doctor’s pleasure in saying it. "Thought you'd never ask," she replied, and he spun away to check the control panel's readouts.

The TARDIS would have alerted the Doctor telepathically about the exterior conditions wherever they landed, but the _Mark Two_ wasn't quite up to that yet, making an instrument check necessary. Given the parameters the Doctor had entered they should be somewhere Earth-like, but it was definitely worth checking, especially since the _Mark Two_ 's external force field was still dodgy at times.

"Atmospheric content, gravity, pressure, temperature . . . it all looks good! Quite a lovely day, in fact," the Doctor announced.

"So what are we waiting for?" Rose asked, ducking under a loop of cable and standing by the exit, her hand extended invitingly. His hand was in hers a second later, and together they opened the door and stepped outside.

The sky was a clear, pale green, streaked with golden-white cirrus clouds, the air springtime-warm and deliciously fresh. The _Mark Two_ stood in a landscape of low, rolling hills, covered by what could have been golden grass and dotted with trees that wouldn't have looked too out of place on Earth, aside from the bluish tint to their dark, glossy leaves. Rose had been to many worlds more exotic than this one, most of which had been at least as aesthetically pleasing, but she still thought she'd never seen a more beautiful landscape.

The Doctor inhaled deeply. "New air," he said, with a trace of approving growl to his tone. "Oooooooooh, I've missed that!"

"Me too," Rose said, smiling up at him, brushing back wayward strands of hair. She squeezed his hand affectionately, and he squeezed back.

"Let's run," he suggested out of nowhere, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

"Where to?" she laughed. "Why?"

"Anywhere!" he replied, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "Because we can."

Rose glanced over her shoulder at the _Mark Two_ , which was doing an excellent impression of one of the blue trees; the Doctor had decided to install a functioning chameleon circuit this time out. All the same, Rose would have recognized the ship instantly. A disguised timeship was always obvious to her crew, the Doctor had said, since it would hardly do to park it and lose it. It was an effect related to the telepathic connection that allowed instantaneous translation of nearly every language.

Reassured, Rose looked back up at the expectant Doctor, and he read her answer before she could speak.

"Run," he whispered, and they did.


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor revelled in a sense of pure freedom, stretching his long legs and feeling his human musculature warm with activity while the new, lovely air ran over his skin in much the same way this planet's unique magnetic field caressed the Time Lord senses he still possessed. With an effort, he slowed to make things easier for Rose, though she was keeping up very well, shorter legs or not. Her hand was sweat-slippery in his and the touch of her skin sang to him in ways it hadn't when he'd been fully alien: pathetically, celibately alien, he now thought.

Really, half-human and half-Time Lord had to be about the best combination in the Universe. He felt wildly alive, exhilarated, intoxicated, like he could run forever . . . he pulled in another lungful of sweet air, perfumed with a slight spicy tang that rose up from the knee-deep vegetation that had replaced grass a while back, and something pinged deep in his memory. _Intoxicated . . . ?_

Unease slowed his stride as the memory swam up to the surface; when it broke through, he stopped dead. Rose, who'd felt him slowing, stopped with him.

"Doctor?" she asked, frowning as she took in his expression.

But he wasn't listening. He was looking down at the bristly, weedy, tan stuff in which they were standing knee-deep. "Ohh, bugger," he said aloud and his head snapped up, looking around to see where they were. The tan vegetation spread as far as he could see, with trees even fewer and farther between than before. The _Mark Two_ was nowhere in sight. He hadn't intended to run anywhere near this far, just to the crest of the next rise or so. But one whiff of those subtle, mind-altering phytochemicals and it had all quite literally run away with him.

"Doctor?" Rose asked, getting concerned now. "What is it?" Her eye pupils were a little narrower than they should have been, even in the bright sunlight – he wasn't the only one who'd picked up a bit of a buzz, though neither of them was truly drugged at this point.

"We have to get out of here," he said, casting around as he tugged on Rose's hand and urged her into a jog back the way they'd come. If they were lucky, they hadn't been spotted. "This is dreamwort -- it's a drug crop, illegal as hell and not native to this planet."

Rose's eyes widened. "Oh, God, this is someone's narcotics plantation!"

"And they won't take kindly to trespassers, unless I miss my bet," the Doctor agreed, speeding up. Rose matched his pace without complaint as they began to run in earnest.

They topped a rise and the Doctor could see the distant line where tan dreamwort gave way to golden grass. He thought they were actually going to make it . . . but then he heard the rapidly-approaching rumble of engines. A glance over his shoulder confirmed that there were two skimmers coming up on them, fast, slipping through the air at shoulder-height on cushion of reverse-tractor energy. Very logical choice, skimmers. They could run smoothly over any terrain, and wouldn't damage the valuable dreamwort crop with their passage.

Even though here was no hope of outrunning their pursuers, Rose and the Doctor sprinted for it anyway. He heard the crack of a fired weapon, but instead of a projectile it was a rapidly-expanding mesh of sticky fibers that took them both down from behind.

\--

Shoved forward, his arms bound behind his back, the Doctor lost his balance and fell forward onto the packed-earth floor, tucking into a partial roll to avoid injury. Rose, shoved in after him, staggered but kept her balance. She went down on one knee next to him as the heavy plank door behind them slammed shut.

"I'm all right," the Doctor told her, wriggling into a position that would allow him to stand up. Rose stood and, unable to embrace, they leaned into one another slightly for comfort.

Rose was already taking in their surroundings, and knew the Doctor was doing the same. Damp walls of roughly-dressed stone that looked very solid, a ceiling of heavy wooden beams and planks, a single lighting fixture, no windows, just the one heavy door, with no hinges or locks available on the inside . . . and, slumped in one shadowed corner, a humanoid shape. They weren't alone.

Just as the Doctor felt Rose's little jump of recognition and started to turn, a very familiar male voice said, "Welcome to the party. Hope you brought your own booze, though. Our hosts are pretty chintzy." The tone was tired, but alert and dry.

Rose's heart nearly stopped and she slipped around the Doctor, taking a few cautious steps towards the figure in the corner. "Jack?" she asked, unbelieving.

"Sorry. Oof." The figure heaved itself into a standing position. "I've been called a lot of things before, but that isn't one of them. Name's Jed. Jed Holbrook."

The man calling himself Jed stepped into to the light and Rose's breath froze. It _was_ Jack. The haircut was different, he looked like he'd gotten the worst out of a fistfight and he was wearing plain, practical clothing that could have belonged to almost any era, rather than Jack's accustomed greatcoat, but it was him and no mistake.

“I’m the Doctor, and this is Rose,” the Doctor responded easily, covering for Rose’s stunned silence. He moved in close enough to bump against her back and leaned forward to bring his mouth close to her ear. "Gingerbread," he murmured and her brain kicked back into gear. That was their private code word for things that were the same – or different, depending on the context – in this Universe, compared to the one they were from.

Jack – _Jed_ – caught the exchange and raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. Nor did the lack of full names in the Doctor’s introduction appear to faze him. Instead, he asked, "So how'd you get invited to this shindig?"

The Doctor looked around the room, frowning. "Anybody listening in, do you think?"

Jed's eyes narrowed appreciatively. "I haven't been able to spot anything, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're alone."

The Doctor made a considering noise and Rose blinked as something happened inside her head. When the Doctor spoke again, she knew it was a different language altogether, though she still understood him perfectly. Some sort of change to the translation circuit, it must be. She hadn't known he could do that.

"Any chance they've been to the Boeshane?" the Doctor asked in the new language. Jed looked as shocked as if the Doctor had sprouted a second head: shocked, and scared.

"You know who I am," Jed said, backing away slightly, body language gone wary. "Who sent you?"

"Nobody," the Doctor replied, still in that other language. "We were just travelling through and ended up in a field of dreamwort."

"Yeah? Then how'd you know I speak 'Shaney?" Jed shot back, switching languages in turn. Rose grimaced as her perceptions twisted again; the sensation wasn’t painful, but it was very weird.

"Your accent," the Doctor said, as if it were obvious.

"I went to a lot of work to lose that accent," Jed replied, but Rose saw him relaxing fractionally. The Doctor was radiating his best friendly-harmless aura, and it seemed to be working.

"I've got a very good ear," the Doctor said, with a self-deprecating half-shrug.

"Either that or I need my money back from a couple language coaches," Jed said, with a return of his dry humor. Rose could see he was still wary; he no more than half-believed what the Doctor was saying, but he was at least willing to keep talking. "Anyway, to answer your question, this bunch is all from the Tau Ceti neck of the woods. I doubt any of them'd know 'Shaney if it tried to give ‘em head."

Rose snorted. Different Universes or not, some things did stay the same.

"I wasn't planning on offering anything of the sort," the Doctor said, matching Jed for dryness as he began to scan the walls of their prison again. "But it gives us a private way to communicate. What's your stake in all this?"

Jed considered, then gave an acquiescing tilt of his head. "I was contacted about a delivery job. When I found out what the cargo was, I balked." His tone was even, but his expression revealed an edge of genuine disgust.

"Dreamcrack," the Doctor said, making it a statement rather than a question. His lip curled slightly, as if the word itself had a nasty taste to it, echoing Jed’s expression.

"Is that a drug they refine from the stuff out there?" Rose asked. She resolutely ignored the sensation of her mouth and throat shaping strange words that still made sense to her ears.

Jed gave her a _where the hell have_ you _been?_ look, but nodded. "Forget dreams, that stuff's a nightmare. I'm not against a little recreational chemistry, but I wouldn't carry that poison on my ship for a million credits and the Nova Crown of Quarrenda. I was planning to stall them and then alert the authorities, but they kinda figured that out." Jed ran his tongue meditatively along a swollen and bloodied spot on his upper lip. "I estimate I've been in here the better part of a day."

"So why didn't they just shoot us? All of us?" Rose asked, looking from Jed to the Doctor.

"Me, I know they're planning to sell off to some former employers," Jed said. "You guys . . . not a clue. Whatever it is, they think you'll be worth some money. These people are all about profit. Slavery, organ farming, you name it." He was dreadfully matter-of-fact in his tone. "For what it's worth, you'll be getting the better bargain, once certain people get hold of me."

"Yes, well, I think we can all avoid our gruesome fates," the Doctor said. "I have a way out."

Rose grinned. "Would that be a sonic way?" she asked.

"Ye-ep. I'm very happy they only patted me down and didn't actually get into my pockets. Now the only problem is getting _me_ into my pockets. Here, Rose, go back to back with me and see if you can do anything about these knots. Good thing they didn't have any cuffs or real restraints. I don't think they expected to be bothered, given how isolated they are here, which is to our advantage."

Jed was eyeing the Doctor's trim, close-fitting suit jacket and trousers doubtfully. There didn't appear to be anything in any of his pockets, or room for concealment. "This is a munitions bunker," Jed said. "We're underground, and the only way out is through the door. It may be wood, but it's at least ten centimeters thick and I’m pretty sure it’s reinforced. Unless you have a military-grade blaster in there, I can't see sonic _anything_ getting us out of here."

"Trust me," the Doctor said, fixing Jed with a look of absolute sincerity.

Jed hesitated, then said, "Oh, hell, I was saving this, but . . ." He worked his arms for a second, and then his hands were free. He tossed the cord aside and massaged his wrists for a moment before moving to help untie them.

"I've had plenty of time to work," he explained, moving to undo first the Doctor's and then Rose's bonds. "And knots are kind of a hobby of mine . . ." his flirty tone of voice left no doubt as to what kind of hobby. Rose snorted, and Jed winked at her, the gesture achingly familiar; her return smile was pure spinal reflex.

“Don’t start,” the Doctor responded, rolling his eyes. It was so natural, Rose knew Jed’s resemblance to Jack had, however briefly, gotten under his defenses, too. This was going to be difficult in ways that didn’t even involve escaping a makeshift dungeon.

“I’m guessing there isn’t any visual surveillance, then?” the Doctor continued. His tone was casual enough, but Rose could tell he was aware of his own Jed/Jack slip.

“Nobody came busting through the door to stop me when I was messing with my own ropes,” Jed responded while Rose worked her wrists and joints in relief. “And I know I was pretty obvious once or twice. If they are watching, they aren’t being very hardcore about it.”

“Still, no need to hang about,” the Doctor said with a cheery smile, fishing his cobbled-together sonic screwdriver from his suit pocket and flipping it end-for-end in the air. It was considerably larger and clunkier than the original, and Rose saw Jed do a quick double-take; there should have been no way for something so ungainly to have fitted so invisibly into the Doctor’s trouser pocket.

 

The Doctor caught the screwdriver and immediately aimed its greenish light at the door. “Hunh,” he grunted, moving the trilling screwdriver around the edge of the frame. “Deadlocked.”

Rose’s stomach dropped slightly. “Does that mean we’re stuck?” she asked.

“Nope,” the Doctor responded, grinning over his shoulder and popping the “p.” “This is the new and improved sonic screwdriver – it works on _wood_ now!” He thumbed the controls, aiming the device at the center of the door. The trilling changed, developing a stronger oscillation and an undertone that set Rose’s teeth on edge. The green light flared more brightly and there was a second, crackling sound like paper being crumpled.

The Doctor flicked off the screwdriver with a smug expression, slipping the instrument back into his pocket, which swallowed it up without a visible trace. Then he stepped forward and swung his closed fist sidelong, like a hammer, striking a solid blow in the center of the door.

With a brittle _crunch_ , the door shattered into a mass of dust and wood splinters which pattered quietly to the ground, revealing metal fixtures and reinforcing bands still in their places. There was enough space for the Doctor to easily duck through.

“Oh, now _that’s_ slick!” Jed exclaimed with the start of an admiring grin. He saw Rose looking at him and the grin widened. She grinned back.

“C’mon,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”


	3. Chapter 3

A short, upward-sloping, timber-reinforced earthen tunnel led to a second, outer door – which, the Doctor quickly established, was not deadlocked. The three of them bunched together for a quick consultation before opening the way to freedom and, most likely, all hell breaking loose.

“Our ship is in a field about three klicks south of here,” the Doctor murmured. “If we can get hold of a skimmer . . .”

“My ship’s closer,” Jed broke in, voice low but intense. “Less than half that distance. There’s a hangar, carved into a cliffside; the whole operation is designed to be difficult to spot from orbit. The hangar’s also where their main transmitter is. I was going to fire off a message to the Agency, alerting them to this place on my way out. If we work together, watch each others’ backs, I think we can still pull it off.” He paused. “It’ll mean that much less dreamcrack on the open market,” he added, looking the Doctor straight in the eye as he spoke.

“Agency?” Rose whispered. “The Time Agency?” She looked queasy at the thought. If they were anything like the Agency Jack had described in her home Universe, they prosecuted unauthorized time travelers, like herself and the Doctor, very harshly indeed.

“Yeah,” Jed replied, expression grim. “I’ve had my . . . differences with them, but they’ll settle this bunch in nothing flat. The cross-temporal trade in dreamcrack’s one of their pet peeves. Once I’ve got my ship, it’ll just be a minute’s work to get you to yours. We can all be safely gone by the time the Agency’s goons show up. I wouldn’t strand you; I owe you one. ”

The Doctor considered Jed sharply. If he’d been Jack, the Doctor would have called him completely sincere, but Jed wasn’t Jack. That was the trouble with alternate realities: they could play havoc with a person’s gut reactions and knowledge database. All the same, it was a split-second’s decision to take Jed’s words at face value.

“Deal,” he said. “I don’t want to run afoul of the Agency any more than you do, but once we’ve got _our_ ship they won’t be able to catch us.” He couldn’t keep the smugness out of his tone. What the _Mark Two_ lacked in shock absorption, she made up for in speed.

“Deal,” Rose echoed, smiling first at Jed then at the Doctor in that warm, approving way that made his single heart beat a little faster.

“Deal,” Jed concluded with a dazzling Jack-grin. He held out his hand, first to the Doctor and then to Rose, to seal the contract with a handclasp. “I normally offer fifty percent of the take on a joint venture, but in this case I think our intact hides are the best we’ll get.”

“Business as usual, then, for us,” Rose said, shooting an amused glance at the Doctor. He didn’t return it, being momentarily thrown off-balance by the odd, tingling sensation Jed’s handclasp had given him. The implications were many and disconcerting, but there was no time to ponder them.

“Right! Skimmers. We’ll still want one,” the Doctor said, somewhat abruptly, forcing himself back up to speed. Adrenalin (heady stuff, human hormones) and anticipation flooded his system. He cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows invitingly at Jed. “You wouldn’t happen to know where those are kept . . .?”

\--

As it turned out, Jed did know; he had Jack’s ability to absorb, catalog and interpret strategic details with a glance, and he’d used it well. They crept carefully out the entrance to the munitions bunker, but all that confronted them was an apparently empty landscape. It looked natural at first glance, but the Doctor picked out some tell-tale regularity in the shapes of the rolling hills that hinted at a great deal more buried infrastructure.

“No guards,” Rose said when they stopped briefly. “Where is everyone?”

“Probably out harvesting, to pull in as much of their crop as they can before they run for it,” Jed hazarded. “With you two showing up right after they tossed me in the brig, they’re probably getting nervous that their cover’s broken. We need to move fast, while they’re occupied.”

“Well,” the Doctor commented, lying on his stomach and propping himself up on his elbows so he could peek over the crest of the rise shielding them from view, “not everyone’s out in the fields. Looks like they’ve left a couple of bruisers to guard the skimmers.” He ducked his head, spiky hair blending with the golden-brown grass tips as he plotted their best approach to the above-ground outbuilding – concealed in a grove of trees – containing the skimmers.

Fortunately, all three of them had some training on how to move quietly and under cover. Unfortunately, the outbuilding had only one usable entrance, leaving them no option but to deal with the guards.

They paused again, and Jed, who had taken the lead, held up a hand to keep the others back as he risked a quick, orienting glance around the corner. Silently, with swift, clear hand gestures, he indicated that he would deal with the right-hand guard, and assigned the Doctor the left-hand guard. Rose caught his wrist, stopping him mid-gesture, and shook her head, indicating herself rather than the Doctor.

Jed’s eyebrows went up and he shot a quick, confirming glance at the Doctor, who nodded, reluctantly. There was no time to plan anything more subtle and Rose’s Torchwood training was combined with an impressive natural talent, making her far more effective in hand-to-hand situations than the Doctor.

Jed looked back at Rose, they traded nods, and then they were moving smoothly and silently around the corner in almost perfect unison.

Sixty seconds and two unconscious guards later, the Doctor was sonic-ing open the door and Rose and Jed were settling the shoulder straps of a couple pulse rifles over their shoulders. Rose, frowning, inspected her weapon with practiced efficiency.

“Yeah,” she told Jed, “I’ve seen something like this before. ‘Long as you don’t ask me the change out the power pack, I think I can handle it fine.”

“God, I love competent women,” Jed told her with what appeared to be genuine admiration. Rose, caught by surprise, dropped her eyes and flushed for a second, a tiny smile curving her lips.

The Doctor, catching the nonverbal byplay, experienced a wave of something he couldn’t name; it should have been jealousy, but didn’t feel like it.

Refusing to let himself be rattled, he hissed, “Oi! Skimmers, in case you’d forgotten!” It came out sounding more Donna-ish than he’d intended and both his companions twitched guiltily, but apologizing would have been even more out of line, so the Doctor settled for pulling the door open a crack and jerking his head towards the interior. The others followed him inside.

None of the skimmers were big enough for three people, so Rose and the Doctor claimed a two-person vehicle, while Jed chose a smaller, lighter one-passenger model. A quick search turned up protective eye goggles for all of them. Jed and the Doctor finished hot-wiring their respective vehicles within seconds of each other and traded respectful glances.

Rose swung up behind the Doctor, slipping on her goggles, and he was briefly, disorientingly reminded of a scooter and a trip to see Elvis. No frothy pink skirts for Rose this time, though; in fact, she looked downright daunting, with her leather jacket and pulse rifle.

 _We all change,_ the Doctor reminded himself with self-conscious irony, gunning the skimmer’s engine and engaging the reverse-tractor field. But that didn’t stop him from resolving to make their next adventure one where pink skirts would be more appropriate – minus the face-sucking alien life forces, naturally.

There was no way to disguise the sound of the skimmers’ engines. The best they could do was go fast, hug low points in the terrain to reduce their visibility, and hope any observers took them for members of the farming operation. Jed took the lead, arrowing across the landscape at a white-knuckle low elevation. The Doctor, fully in his element with machinery at his control, shadowed Jed effortlessly. When one was used to piloting in four-plus dimensions, a mere three were easy-peasy.

He was starting to think they’d make it to the ship hangar without being detected when he had the brief warning of new engine noise audible over the roar of his own skimmer. A few seconds later, a pair of skimmers swung into view on a path to intersect them. Jed swooped evasively to the right, gaining altitude now that they’d been discovered.

Blue fire lanced out over the Doctor’s shoulder as Rose fired her pulse rifle, standing in the skimmer’s stirrups and showing off her gymnast’s balance. The oncoming skimmers broke their approach and swerved to the side, attempting to weave evasively. A few shots from Jed’s direction sent them into further disarray. The Doctor concentrated on keeping close on Jed’s tail, trusting Rose to keep their pursuers at bay.

The ground swelled beneath them . . . and then dropped away without warning as a broad river cut deeply through the landscape. For a moment, they followed Jed in a brief free fall, until they got close enough to the water’s surface for the skimmers to find purchase again. There was a bone-jarring bounce as their downward momentum was brought to an abrupt halt a few feet above the river, then they were moving forward again, the invisible tractor fields churning the water below into fine, sparkling spray.

Behind him, the Doctor could hear Rose whooping with delight, despite the danger of their situation, and he grinned reflexively in response. The expression felt very human and rather feral, and he liked it.

Their goal was quickly visible, a gaping, semicircular opening carved into the rock of the canyon wall. It was set about halfway up a nearly vertical slope, providing excellent clearance for incoming and exiting air- and space-craft, but far higher than the uppermost limits of the skimmers’ hovering range. Jed solved that problem by revving his skimmer to maximum speed and simply running it up the side of the cliff, apparently trusting momentum to carry him high enough before the force of gravity forced him to stall out and fall.

He made it, barely, pushing free of the failing skimmer at the height of its trajectory, using the last of that momentum to carry him through the air to the entrance of the hangar, where he landed on both feet, only stumbling a little to one side as he found his balance.

 _Ooooooh, blimey, there’s something to be said for competent men, too,_ the Doctor thought in pure, silent admiration. Then he had to switch his attention to Jed’s abandoned skimmer, which was falling back down the cliff. It was easy enough to avoid its simple downward vector, and the Doctor gunned his skimmer’s engine and followed Jed’s cliff-climbing example. He even managed a messy but secure landing at the edge of the hangar’s entrance, sparing him and Rose from having to imitate Jed’s remarkable leap. As he’d hoped, the greater mass of the larger skimmer and its two passengers carried it higher and further than the single-person vehicle.

Jed already had the lone guard covered with his rifle. The man was glaring daggers, but he was on his knees with his hands behind his head.

“You work fast,” the Doctor told Jed in ‘Shaney, letting his admiration leak through into his voice.

Jed smiled in response without once taking his eyes off his captive; it was a sharp, predatory expression. “I tend to, when my life’s on the line. We’re just lucky they’re so greedy they pulled nearly all their staff off regular duty.”

“Here,” Rose said, stepping forward with a roll of heavy-duty tape she’d found after a quick rummage around the hangar. “I think this is just the thing.”

Together, Rose and the Doctor bound and gagged the guard with the tape, then the three of them heaved the man towards the edge of the hangar so Rose could watch him and their surroundings at the same time. Clearly, from the way he attempted to struggle, the man’s first thought was that they intended to pitch him off the cliff to his death.

“Calm down!” Jed growled to him. “Don’t tempt me. We’re not your sort – but when it comes to dreamcrack runners, I’m inclined to make exceptions.” After that, the captured guard lay relatively limply, though the pulse rifle Rose kept aimed in his direction no doubt had something to do with it.

Jed led the Doctor to the interstellar beacon. The Doctor recognized the system immediately, and between the two of them it was a simple job to set it transmitting an endlessly looped message on a Time Agency frequency and then fuse the controls permanently.

As they worked, the Doctor had a hard time not being distracted by how very smoothly he and Jed worked together, just as he’d always worked with Jack. Even more distracting was the new and very human awareness his new body had of Jed’s, the warm bulk of the other man radiating an almost gravitic fascination.

In and of itself, attraction to another man didn’t disturb the Doctor in the slightest; he came from a culture as inherently flexible about such matters (when they were acknowledged at all) as human fifty-first century society. Given his new half-human nature, which in turn was derived from the very heterosexual Donna Noble, he wasn’t surprised his newest incarnation was inclined to notice members of both genders. It hadn’t been much of an issue, really, since _noticing_ wasn’t quite the same as _wanting,_ and all of his actual wanting had been directed comfortably towards Rose.

Not anymore, though. As a full Time Lord, he’d always been relatively immune to the Harkness charm . . . but as a half-human, he was finding the Holbrook charm pretty bloody effective.

It wasn’t made any easier by the fact that, charm aside, he _liked_ this new-found version of an old friend. Not to mention the seductive, gingerbread-y possibility of starting over – and getting things right the second time ‘round – that came with alternate universes . . .

“There, that should do it,” Jed declared, sounding satisfied. “I figure we have about twenty minutes before the wrath of the Agency descends.”

“Best get to your ship, then,” the Doctor said, feeling the familiar, twitchy need to be away and running starting in his gut.

“No worries,” Jed said, lightly. “I’ve no desire to be around when they show up. Went AWOL from them a while back, and they don’t have much of a sense of humor about that sort of thing. C’mon. I’m betting these clowns didn’t have time to break my security locks yet.”

He led the way to a sleek black-and-red ship the Doctor recognized instantly as a one-man Chula warship. He’d never gotten a clear look at it back in the Blitz; cramped though it might be on the inside, he had to admit the outside of it was handsome, in a deadly sort of way.

Jed had the main airlock open in seconds, whipping through a complex series of key codes with practiced ease. “Hah. Thought so. She’s just as I left her.” He ran an affectionate hand along the rim of the lock, falling silent for a moment, then said, in a carefully casual voice, “Y’know, we work well together, you and me and Rose. If you’d like, I think we could . . . well, work together. For real. Fifty-fifty on all the profits, like I said. At least give it a try, see how it goes?” He looked sidelong at the Doctor, arching an eyebrow.

The Doctor opened and closed his mouth, taken by surprise. “Wuh, uh . . . I’m flattered, _we’re_ flattered, I mean, I’m sure Rose would feel the same, but y’see, we’re not in this for profit. We just travel, help out here and there. Strictly not-for-profit. Humanitarian. Well, sentient-tarian . . .” He was babbling, he realized, and snapped his mouth shut to stop the flow. “Er. I’d better go get Rose.”

“I’ll come with you,” Jed said. “Might as well leave a few surprises as we go.” His smile was positively evil, and the Doctor couldn’t help smiling back as he caught the meaning.

The two of them headed for the entrance, merrily committing small, speedy acts of sabotage on every grounded ship they passed, repeating the performance as they returned to Jed’s ship with Rose in tow.

“You two are having way too much fun,” she said affectionately as the two men cackled together over a particularly effective bit of vandalism.

“Probably,” the Doctor agreed, with sunny good humor. “And now we really have to be on our way – we’ve got about fifteen minutes of clear time left.”

They piled into Jed’s warship and were airborne within two minutes, swooping out of the cavern-hangar and into the open sky. “Three klicks south, you said?” Jed confirmed, leveling the ship out at a low cruising altitude.

“Yep,” the Doctor said, looking over his shoulder at the controls.

“Shouldn’t take more than two minutes. Cutting it a little fine, but if your ship’s as fast as you say, shouldn’t be a problem. In fact,” Jed said, glancing over his shoulder briefly in Rose’s direction, “if you think you can keep up with me, we could head out together. I already offered your partner here a business proposition – maybe pull a few jobs as a team, see how that goes. I offered him fifty-fifty on the take, but for you, I’d drop it to forty-sixty, in your favor.” His concluding smile was stunningly persuasive.

“Oh!” Rose said, suddenly looking very young and vulnerable for someone with a pulse rifle still slung over one shoulder. She flushed. “I, uh, well, we . . .”

“I told him we weren’t in _business_ , per se,” the Doctor offered. “Just travelers.”

“Yeah, exactly, what he said,” Rose responded in immediate agreement, still flustered . . . though she also sounded a little wistful.

“Aw, c’mon, talent like yours shouldn’t be wasted on the amateur market,” Jed began, starting to settle down into a bargaining groove before breaking off abruptly. “Uh, guys, I’ve got some bad news, I’m not seeing any trace of a ship down there, and it should at least be on my scanners by now.”

Ignoring the ship’s instruments and looking through the clear duraplas of the main viewport, the Doctor could single out a particular blue tree that shone like a searchlight to senses for which humans had no names. They were approaching it quickly.

“No, it’s there, just, er, shielded. If you set down in this next field, we’ll be almost on top of her.” Jed shot him a disbelieving glance. “Really, I mean it,” the Doctor said reassuringly.

“He’s right,” Rose said, “I, um, see it, too.”

“It’s your funeral,” Jed declared, halting the ship smoothly and beginning a vertical descent. “Tell you what, I’ll let you out and then wait for a minute or two, just in case . . .”

Alarms began going off and mauve lights began blinking throughout the cockpit.

“ _Damn_ it!” Jed yelped. “Their reaction time has improved, the bastards. The Agency’s just joined the party.” He worked the controls and opened the inner door of the main airlock. “You two bail – I’ll get airborne and cover you . . .”

The Doctor dropped his hand to Jed’s shoulder and squeezed. “No need,” he said, firming his voice into no-arguments mode. “Our ship is temporally equipped. Once we’re though the door, we’ll be into the Vortex, and not even the Agency will be able to follow us. Worry about getting yourself to safety.”

Rose dropped her hand to Jed’s other shoulder. “Thank you,” she said, and the Doctor could hear the constriction of tears in her voice – not surprising, since she was saying goodbye to a version of someone she’d long cared about. “Really.”

Then there was no more time; the Doctor grabbed Rose’s hand and they ran for the airlock.

“Will I see you again?” Jed called after them, unable to leave the controls, genuine distress in his tone.

The Doctor gritted his teeth. “I doubt it. I’m sorry,” he said with honest regret while he worked the controls to open the outer lock on an auto-close delay. He followed Rose out into the sunlight and fresh air and they hit the ground running for the _Mark Two_. In the near distance there was a low, ominous thunder, and the Doctor experienced a moment of déjà vu. Only this time, it wouldn’t be skimmers that hove into view, it would be temporally-equipped warships.

Behind them he heard the airlock seal, and the whine of maneuvering engines . . . but not the rumble of firing thrusters. Looking over his shoulder, the Doctor could see a sleek, black form hovering protectively over them, rotating to face the still-unseen approaching ships.

“Jack, you _idiot,_!” the Doctor yelled, forgetting himself, and turned to sprint in earnest for the _Mark Two_. They reached it a few breaths later and what looked like a ridge in the bark of a perfectly ordinary tree turned into the handle of a door under the Doctor’s hand while Rose slipped her key into the lock.

Later the Doctor was never sure how many times his feet touched the ramp leading to the control column, if any. With a breath that was half curse and half prayer, he switched off the chameleon circuit and sent the _Mark Two_ leaping into the air, traveling through space only, not time. He really had no idea what his jury-rigged ship would look like without its camouflage in place, but surely Jed would see that _something_ was taking off successfully, and end his ridiculous heroics.

The Doctor swung the primitive monochrome viewscreen into place and flipped it on. It gave him a staticky image of Jed’s Chula ship, now somewhat below them. Rose, he was dimly aware, was looking anxiously over his shoulder. He nudged a lever and circled Jed’s ship in what he hoped was a clear signal. For the first and only time, he found himself wishing he had the TARDIS’s more elaborate and mature systems at his disposal; as it was, it would take far too long to try and establish voice communication between ships with the _Mark Two_ ’s bare-bones equipment.

To his immense relief, Jed’s ship waggled its wings in a gesture of acknowledgment and shifted her attitude if preparing to fire thrusters. Just in time, because that was when the _Mark Two_ ’s temporal field proximity alert went off and the Doctor had no choice but to leave before the Agency could get a fix on him. Having the Agency aware of new (to this Universe, anyway), unfamiliar temporal technology was a terrifying prospect. He might be able to outrun them in any individual encounter, but he had no doubt all their available resources would be bent towards finding him if they knew he existed – and he and Rose had family to worry about, back on twenty-first century Earth. They daren’t risk discovery.

He slammed the dematerialization lever home, and the immense currents of the Vortex grabbed hold of the tiny ship, whipping her away as swiftly and lightly as a feather on the surface of the sea, into chaos and safety.


	4. Chapter 4

Rose ran a fingertip across the surface of the blown-glass ornament, lost in thought. It was one of a set, purchased, of all people, by Jackie. The palm-sized spheres were transparent colors – red, blue, green, and purple – swirled with opaque white. The resemblance to planets seen from space was obvious, and, Rose was certain, not coincidental. Difficult as it was for Jackie sometimes, Rose’s mother was trying very hard to be supportive of her daughter’s intermittent wandering.

“Rose?” the Doctor’s voice was gentle, as was his hand on her arm. “Are you all right?”

She blinked and found her eyes had been watering. She sniffed and answered as cheerfully as possible, “Yeah, fine, just thinking.”

The Doctor cocked his head, the gesture combining with his liquid-brown eyes to give him the look of an inquisitive puppy – a nine-hundred-year-old puppy. “About?”

“Jed,” she said, truthfully, brushing her hair back from her face and hanging the ornament in a bare spot on the large Christmas tree the family was currently decorating together. “I keep wondering if he got away all right.”

Once they’d fled safely into the Vortex, they’d returned to the same spot on the unnamed planet’s surface, ten hours later. The Doctor hadn’t dared rematerialize any closer to their departure time than that. All they found was a razed and burnt farming operation, entirely deserted, and a chaotic mess of ships’ drive signatures, temporal and otherwise; no signs of Jed’s escape or capture, and no hope of tracing any one ship’s movements.

“I’m sure he did,” the Doctor said, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her against his side. They’d had this conversation several times over the past few linear months. “He’s a version of Jack, after all, and Jack’s a slippery customer. Slippery as they come.”

Rose snorted quietly and slipped her arm around his waist in return. “You know he’d take what you just said in the rudest possible way.”

“Of course. That’s why I said it.”

Rose looked up at the Doctor’s lopsided grin and smiled back, but her expression faltered, going serious again. “I almost wish we’d taken him up on his offer,” she said, not for the first time.

“Me, too,” he said, simply and softly.

They leaned into each other for a moment, but then Tony was tugging at Rose’s trouser leg, asking her to help him hang one of the (relatively non-breakable) ornaments allotted to him, Pete dragged the Doctor off for a solemn, manly consultation about fairy lights, Jackie flitted back and forth filling her digital camera with photos, and the moment was gone and temporarily forgotten.

Later, approaching bedtime, the tree was finally finished – Tony (and the Doctor) having been mostly persuaded to _hang_ the tinsel rather than _throwing_ it – when Davis, the night security chief, slipped apologetically into the room.

“Sorry,” he said, after clearing his throat. “There’s a man at the front gate with a Level Four Torchwood security pass, but he’s nobody the guard recognizes. He says his name is Jedediah Holbrook, and he works with the Doctor and Rose . . .”

He broke off as simultaneous shrieks of _”What?!”_ and _”Who?!”_ burst out from opposite ends of the room.

“Er, should I tell them to pass him through, or lock him up?” Davis asked, uncertainly, before being nearly bowled over by Rose and the Doctor bolting for the house’s security station.

A glance at the grainy CCTV image of the man in question was enough – there could be no doubt it was Jed. He was effortlessly chatting up the gate guard and appeared relatively relaxed.

“Pass him through,” the Doctor said, slipping off his reading glasses and folding them into his pocket. “Rose and I will meet him at the door. If he’s alone, there’s no problem. If he’s being used as a front . . . well, keep your people ready.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Davis responded, having been in service long enough to know that “Sir” was a form of address best avoided. Orders were given, security personnel were hastily rearranged, and Pete and Jackie took Tony upstairs to bed.

On the way to the front door, Rose’s hand slipped into the Doctor’s. “Do you really think the Agency could be using him to get to us?”

“I hope not, but if he was captured . . .”

“Yeah,” Rose sighed in agreement, her heartbeat speeding up.

They didn’t have long to wait; there was a knock at the door almost at the same time they arrived in the entryway.

The Doctor took a deep breath, turned the handle, and opened the door.

There stood Jed, wrapped in a long coat of the style Jack had always favored, with a bottle of wine in one hand and an impressive bouquet of flowers cradled in the crook of his arm. He flashed his trademark, dazzling grin as he caught sight of Rose and the Doctor.

“I’m supposed to turn this over for a toxicology check,” he said holding up the bottle by way of illustration. “With any luck, we still might get to enjoy it later. I hope.”

The Doctor blew out his breath. “What are you doing here?”

“And how did you find us?” Rose added.

“Last question first, and can I come in . . .? Thanks, it’s cold out there.” He slipped through the door and the Doctor automatically closed it against on the chill night air. “Anyway, I admit it wasn’t easy, but I tracked you down by your temporal signature. Never seen anything like it and it was really faint, but I got a great reading of it, seeing as how you shifted nearly on top of me.”

“Ah,” the Doctor said in a tone of enlightenment, tapping the back of his front teeth with his tongue. “You’ve got temporal shift capability in _your_ ship, too. You just didn’t have the field powered up yet.”

“Hell, yeah, don’t leave the Agency without being able to shift, otherwise they’ll find you in nothing flat,” Jed said. “As for what I’m doing here, well, we were kinda interrupted in the middle of some negotiations last time and I thought it was worth taking up again.”

He’d been shooting curious glances around the entryway as he spoke, taking in the marble floor, the height of the ceiling, the paintings and sculptures and the overall air of money-to-spare. He paused and nodded approvingly. “Guess I can see why you weren’t really interested in the profit side of things – this is a _nice_ setup you’ve got here. A little on the barbaric side, but nice . . . Say, is that a real Picasso?”

Rose, composure largely regained, reacted to Jed’s keen and speculative interest in one of her family’s most prized (and expensive) possessions by reaching for the flowers he carried. “Here, let me take those.” Jed obliged, the temporary distraction working.

“So you got away cleanly, then?” the Doctor asked, tilting his chin up slightly as he examined Jed with great concentration.

Jed’s gaze sharpened, and he met the Doctor’s eyes fearlessly. “Yeah, I did – the Agency didn’t brainwash me into a stalking horse, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

The Doctor considered him a moment longer, eyes dark and deep and alien, before slowly nodding. “I believe you,” he said, “But when someone shows up on my doorstep with no warning, flashing psychic paper – that is what you used, isn’t it? – to get past Security, can you blame me for being careful?”

“Guess not,” Jed admitted, manner easing. Then he caught sight of something past Rose and went still. Rose and the Doctor both turned to look, to find little Tony, peeking around the corner.

“Tony!” Rose said in exasperation. “I thought Mum took you upstairs and told you to stay there.”

Caught, Tony stepped out of hiding. He was in his pyjamas, and doing his best to look innocent. “I jus' wanted to see your friend,” he said, all but batting his eyelashes.

Rose sighed. It was probably a terrible idea to reward her brother for disobeying, but she didn’t have the heart to frog-march him back upstairs at the moment, either. “All right, then,” she said, holding out her free hand. “Come and meet him.”

Tony shuffled forward and took her hand, keeping his eyes on Jed the whole time with a child’s open curiosity. Rose turned to find Jed looking back and forth between herself and the Doctor with an unnerved expression.

“Jed, this is my brother, Tony,” she said, and Jed didn’t quite look relieved, but his features did relax slightly. “Tony, this is Mr. Holbrook.”

Tony, wearing his _I Am Being Very Grown Up_ look, held out a solemn little hand. Jed earned several points in Rose’s book by shaking it without the slightest irony.

When they were done, Rose told Tony, “There, you’ve met him now. Anything else?”

Tony, going into silent mode, shook his head.

“Then why don’t you go back upstairs and go to bed?” Wonder of wonders, the logic actually worked, and Tony turned to obey. “Tell Mum to slap Security for letting you sneak down here, if you see her,” she added, which earned her a giggle before Tony went scampering back up the stairs.

“I swear your brother has a brilliant career as a covert agent waiting for him,” the Doctor murmured.

“Mm,” Rose replied in absent-minded agreement, watching their guest. Jed was back to having a very odd expression on his face.

He caught Rose looking at him, and shifted uncomfortably. “I . . . didn’t realize. This is your home.”

“Yeah, it is,” Rose said, letting her tone clearly convey the additional, _What else would it be?_

“I could leave . . . “ Jed began, making little, embarrassed gestures in the direction of the door. Rose was fascinated; she’d never seen either version of this man embarrassed before.

“Oh, no,” the Doctor said, lightly. “You came all this way, we might as well talk . . . though that does beg the question: where’s your ship, exactly?”

“Safely hidden – invisible,” Jed replied, sounding huffy at the implication. “It won’t be freaking the locals. Er.” The last was delivered with a guilty glance in Rose’s direction.

“We appreciate the courtesy,” she told him, in her driest tone. “Though, really, I’m wondering what you were planning on negotiating with us _for._ Last I heard, you were talkin’ about a business partnership, but flowers and wine? That doesn’t exactly scream _business meeting_ to me.”

“True. Not even in the fifty-first century,” the Doctor agreed, showing the first faint twinkle of amusement. He raised his eyebrows invitingly at Jed.

“Well,” Jed said with a casual one-shouldered shrug, most of his composure regained, “I thought we could start with business, and see where things went from there.”

“ _Did_ you?” the Doctor said, his amusement clear and on the surface now. He glanced at Rose, meeting her eyes, and they both began to smile, reading each other’s reactions. “Then I guess I’d better go see about getting this wine cleared for consumption.”

“C’mon,” Rose told Jed. “While he’s doing that, I’ll show you through and find some water for these flowers. Mum and Dad will probably want to meet you, too. And then . . .”

“Then we’ll negotiate terms,” the Doctor said, exiting with a wink and a grin.


End file.
